Intro
Contents
We again have three wonderful speaker cables on loan from HEAK: the Kimber Carbon 18XL, Dyrholm Phoenix and the OePhi Reference. What we’re curious about are the differences in sound and performance. Does investing more also mean more music?
We have been getting an extraordinary number of requests to test cables since our big cable survey – 32 interlinks and 32 speaker cables. We don’t accept everything, because we don’t want to just test cables, but sometimes the offering distributer, brand or importer opts a nice idea. Like this ‘triple test’ with some cables we don’t know yet.
Kimber Carbon 18XL
The Kimber Carbon 18XL features the well-known braided Kimber geometry. Basically, the structure consists of a core constructed of multiple strands and around it Kimber wrapped another series of conductors. The conductors vary in diameter. Finally, the whole is braided again to eliminate noise.
The Carbon 18XL has an added bonus: the cable is finished with a fluorocarbon dielectric. That should insulate even better than regular Teflon. The 3-meter pair we have for testing costs 8595 Euros, or 7695 for 2,5m.
Dyrholm Phoenix
Denmark’s Dyrholm has given its Phoenix series an update in 2020. The “new” Phoenix comes much closer to the Zodiac series, but keeps the price interesting. Although 4275 Euro remains a pretty serious amount for a pair of 2.5 meter speaker cable.
The Dyrholm Phoenix is constructed with silver-plated copper conductors of various diameters. All strands are insulated with cotton. These in turn are bundled. Around the bundle goes a nice jacket. The digital interlinks and interlinks are shielded with galvanized copper. The speaker cable is not. What the reason for this is is not clear to us.
OePhi Reference
The (also Danish) OePhi doesn’t give a whole lot of information about its cable. Except that this is the top model and that they use conductors made of pure copper. Also, they mention that the cable is very fast and has a high bandwith. We’ll see if that’s true later.
The construction is remarkable with two separate conductors spaced apart with spacers. We do like the fact that OePhi uses spacers instead of just leaving the separate conductors loose: that’s just a bad idea, we know by now. A pair of 2.5 meters costs 5650 Euro.
Measured values are per meter or for the full 2.5m length?
2.5m
Hi Tobias, Thanks for your kind suggestions and your appreciative words.. I can’t promise when or where, but I will try to experiment with it, let’s call it an A-B test.
Wait and see!
As always i love reading your tests and value your opinions on everything you compare!
This is just a small suggestion, that i hope you are not offended by.
When testing things like cables, switches and power, have you thought about replacing phrases like “How do they sound” with “How do they influence this setup to sound”?
It might sound like a small nit picking, and maybe it is, but i truly believe that many of your readers that often might be sceptic are going to be even more sceptic when someone says that a cable has a certain sound. Isn´t it so that the cable only influences other parts of the system downstream to behave/react different and change the sound in components after the cable/switch/power. That could potentially mean that the same cable could “sound” different in another system, meaning that it doesn´t have a sound, as such? I actually think it will make a big difference what wording you use, from an educational perspective.
Hi Tobias,
Thanks for reaching out.
You are absolutely right in your assertion that a component’s sonic presentation is related to its match in the audio chain. That’s why we always mention the review setup.
In our livestreams and reviews we always mention that what we hear, doesn’t necessarily mean it sounds the same in your system. Everything is relative and so are our and your experiences. In writing and in videos we try to share what we hear with you, our audience. That doesn’t mean that this is THE truth.
We entice you to let your ears do the talking. To not take a brand’s claim for granted. To not take our view for granted. Our measurements are an additional service that (sometimes) clarifies what we hear or where the differences in sound come from. I really don’t think that a semantic change, as you so kindly suggest, would make much of a difference. If people are sceptic, let them be sceptic. We enjoy what we do and we enjoy the beautiful music and feel privileged to share our experiences.
For me (and my others i suspect) the semantic would have made a very big difference initially in my journey. The general HiFi press semantic delayed my understanding just because i didn´t even try to listen due to the wordings used. I think you where actually the ones that where much better than others in articulating this in a better way than others so that I started to listen. So, you are obviously already doing a great job already! But when you get into this hobby and you have a computer background, as many now a day´s have, then you won´t even try to understand if someone say “this switch sound…” or “the cable sound…”. As i said, I know you are very careful and good at explaining already now, like you just said, which is great. But i actually think the devil is in the details here.
Wording won’t convince skeptics. We don’t try to convince people, not our mission in life. There are much nicer things to put your energy into.
Ok, i put it badly. What i am trying to say is that you are standing out in the HiFi press as someone you can trust, due to the way you work and how you approach HiFi. If you want even more readers/consumers, which i assume is the whole point with journalism, then i think these things matter to get peoples attention. People are not deniers because they want to, they really need some help, and easy one-liners, to understand and many are not going to dig into a long article if you see simple wordings, like headlines, that put you off, i believe.
I´m not gonna ramble more here, and i might be wrong! i just want to share my honest opinion since i love what you do.